Question of the Day

Whose side of the story do you believe?

Story TOpics

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. accompanied by members of the House and Senate Democrats, gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017. House and Senate Democrats gather to call for Congressional Republicans ... more >

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ statement announcing the phaseout of DACA was part of a racist alt-right push for “purification of America.”

Mrs. Pelosi also said Mr. Trump gave her assurances in a meeting Wednesday and again in a phone call Thursday morning that he would sign the Dream Act to legalize the young adult illegal immigrants who are currently protected by DACA.

The California Democrat said Mr. Trump “probably wants some border enforcement” measures attached, and she listed Coast Guard efforts to interdict drugs as an area of cooperation, but she said the deal they’re talking about won’t allow for Mr. Trump’s border wall.

“It does not include a wall,” she said flatly.

Mrs. Pelosi spoke with reporters a day after striking a major deal with Mr. Trump on looming fiscal deadlines, agreeing to a three-month extension of government spending and the government’s borrowing ability.

She said that agreement could pave the way for other cooperation, including on the Dream Act, which is legislation to legalize illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, and who are deemed the most sympathetic figures in the debate.

Some 800,000 of them have been protected in recent years by a 2012 deportation amnesty President Obama announced. But after concluding that policy was likely to be struck down by the courts, the Trump administration announced a six-month phaseout this week.

The legal decision was announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said Mr. Obama had tried to usurp Congress’s powers to write immigration laws.

Mrs. Pelosi, though, said Mr. Sessions’ goals were in line with white supremacists’.

“It was about white people in America, and it was a terrible, terrible statement,” she said, comparing Mr. Sessions to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, whose publication Breitbart is a favorite of the alt-right.

She said illegal immigration opponents see the push to deport those in the country without authorization as a way to reach the “purification of America.”

In his remarks Tuesday Mr. Sessions didn’t mention race.

He did describe the problems he said stemmed from illegal immigration, including a breakdown in the rule of law and “allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.”

“Under President Trump’s leadership, this administration has made great progress in the last few months toward establishing a lawful and constitutional immigration system,” Mr. Sessions said. “This makes us safer and more secure. It will further economically the lives of millions who are struggling. And it will enable our country to more effectively teach new immigrants about our system of government and to assimilate them to the cultural understandings that support it.”